In one of the more remote valleys of that sub-arctic rain forest called the Canadian Rockies there is a mountain wall which acts like a strong drug on the mind of the observer. So dark, sheer, and gloomy is the North Face of North Twin, like a b...

Mt. Nevermore, East Face, The Call of the Raven. In June, Mike Houston (a.k.a. Mausen) and brothers Doug and Jed Workman flew to the Tatina Glacier and spent 40 days in Alaska’s Kichatna Spires, making the first ascent of the east face of Mt. Neve...

Ama Dablam, North to South Traverse. It was reported that a team of climbers summited Ama Dablam via the north ridge and descended along the southwest ridge. The north ridge had not seen a successful ascent in 13 years, but on October 19 Friedl Hu...

Twin Sister High Route. An easily accessible alpine training ground during the 1980s, the Twin Sister Range on the western edge of the Mt. Baker Wilderness is now isolated behind miles of private and gated logging lands. From May 12-14 Mark Allen,...

Ann Brooks Carter, 1917–2011Ann Brooks Carter was born into a loving Quaker family in Medford, Massachusetts, on February 10, 1917. After graduation from Smith College in 1938, she taught at the Shady Hill School in Cambridge, which she had attend...

Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman. Yvon Chouinard. New York: Penguin Press, 2005. 261 pages. Hardcover. $26.95. This review assignment made me nervous. I have to pass judgment on a book by climbing legend and envi...

Everest Southwest FaceChristian BoningtonI knew there was something wrong the moment Martin Boysen started speaking on the radio. It was 7:30 in the evening of September 26 and in the last three hours the tension had been steadily mounting at Camp...

Lighting Out. Daniel Duane. Greywolf Press, St. Paul, Minn. 1994. Softcover. 292 pages. $12.00.Rarely is a book reviewed in this Journal with such literary heavyweights on its back cover as A.R. Ammons (whose Garbage is arguably the best long poem...

Training Mountain Troops in the Canadian RockiesRex GibsonAT the urgent request of the editor I am addressing myself for the third time to the task of writing an account of a most interesting military experiment, namely, the training of the Lovat ...

Robert Hicks Bates 1911–2007Bob Bates and I were close friends for more than 70 years. We began climbing together in the 1930s in the quarries around Boston and in Northern New England under the tutelage of some of the best climbers in the Northea...

This climb is a long, sketchy-but-easy, rockaineering ascent of Mt. Wilson. In mid-April, Oliver Deshler and I hiked two hours to the base, up a gully toward Resolution Arête and Inti Watana, past the Inti Watana ravine, and bushwacked anoth...

Mt. Odin, south couloir ski descent. On April 17 Jim Surette, Ken Sauls, and I left our camp at the Windy Lake shelter, with our sights set on skiing a giant couloir which splits the south face of Mt. Odin. It was first climbed in 1974 by a French...

FALL INTO CREVASSEWashington, Mount RainierOn Sunday morning, August 22, 1982, Daryl Beazer, Jim Ellefson and Philip Es- linger (20) left Paradise for Camp Muir and a summit climb the following day. On Monday morning early, they left Camp Muir en ...

Saser KangriJogindar Singh, Indo-Tibetan Border PoliceSASER KANGRI, 25,170 feet, meaning “Yellow Snow Mountain” * in Ladakhi, lies in the eastern Karakoram, guarded by three satellites, Saser II, III and IV (24,650, 24,560 and 24,330 feet). It has...

FAILURE TO FOLLOW ROUTE–WEATHER, FAILURE TO TURN BACK, INADEQUATE CLOTHING AND EQUIPMENT, DEHYDRATION, HYPOTHERMIA, FROSTBITEWashington, Mount Baker, North RidgeJames Genone (25) and I began the approach to the North Ridge of Mount Baker on June 7...

Mt. Andromeda graces countless postcards and coffee-table books, and, more to the point, is the climbing centerpiece of the Columbia Icefields. Andromeda is a university of alpine climbing. Over the years, as I worked my way through its routes, st...

EXPOSURE, FATIGUE, INADEQUATE CLOTHING AND EQUIPMENTCalifornia, Yosemite ValleyOn October 28, 1984, at 1025, David D. Dryden (19) reported that he and Thomas Apel (19) had been climbing Lost Arrow Spire, and due to unexpected fatigue, they had to ...

  Buenos aires … the customs official, fat and red-faced, squinted at us through his spectacles; he looked down at the impressive sheaf of papers already plastered with official stamps. With a solemn nod, one more stamp, his initials, then a hand...

Everest, West Ridge Winter Attempt, 1984-5. [Details were missing when A.A.J., 1985 went to press.—Editor. ] An expedition of the French including leader Eric Dossin, Bernard Francou, Vincent Fine, Benoît Chamoux and Dr. Olivier Callande, Italian ...

FALL ON ICE–NO BELAYCalifornia, Sierra Nevada, Mount DanaOn October 12, my wife, Ann (28) and I, Pedro Frigola (28), attempted a one-day ascent of Mount Dana via Dana Couloir, a popular 1,000-foot ice climb rated Class 4 ice/snow. Dana Couloir lie...